From the Mississippi Flotilla: 'The Rebels to be Bagged'

Back to the Sypher brothers, A. J. Sypher (previous letter)--an officer about the ironclad gunboat USS St. Louis--was quickly gaining on his brother James Hale Sypher in terms of battle count, as the Mississippi Flotilla looked forward to their next fight after forcing the surrender of Island No. 10.  His letter exudes confidence in the ability of the gunboats as they took on Fort Wright and Fort Pillow between April and June 1862.  

Other content includes the story of an escaped slave and his rejection and subsequent acceptance by the fleet and the correspondence of a Virginia soldier and his mother.

In another month, look for more letters from the USS St. Louis, this time penned by Daily Evening Express correspondent and gentleman adventurer J. R. Sypher, who was on a grand officially-sanctioned tour of the Western Theater to visit with the 79th Pennsylvania and his brothers.

Also, be sure to read my post about the letters written by another Lancasterian, Francis Kilburn, from a mortar boat and Craig Swain's interesting post about the operation of a mortar boat. 

From the April 23, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

Lancaster at Shiloh: Lt. Ben Ober in Louisville

Lithograph of the Battle of Shiloh: Charge of the 14th Wisconsin (Library of Congress)

While Lieut. Ben Ober of Company K, 77th Pennsylvania, missed his company's initiation into the world of Civil War battle at the Battle of Shiloh, his letter provides an important insight into the link between battlefield and home front in the days after a battle. 

Ober was in Louisville, Kentucky, recovering from a second  episode of a severe illness.  He observed boat loads of wounded arriving in Louisville and the commotion they caused in the city.  The letter also recounts his attempts to learn the fate of the 77th Pennsylvania in the battle, the particulars of which he hadn't procured by April 14, a full week after the battle.     

This is Benjamin Ober's last letter from the Western Theater.  He resigned shortly thereafter, and reported from Virginia during the Peninsula Campaign for a couple months.  After that, I don't know of Ober's fate, which could be an interesting research project.

From the April 18, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)

Lancaster at Shiloh: Pvt. F. J. Bender

"Battle of Shiloh" Lithograph by Prang & Co. (Source: Library of Congress)

77th Pa. Monument at Shiloh
(from regimental history)

Besides a few stray men and officers with Lancaster connections, Lancaster County's only real representation at Shiloh was one full company and two partial companies in the 77th Pennsylvania.  As part of McCook's division, they participated in the counterattack around the middle of the Union line and helped salvage the battle for the Union cause.  As the only Pennsylvania regiment at Shiloh, the regiment's veterans--led by John Obreiter of Lancaster--erected a monument there after the war, and published a book, The Seventy-Seventh Pennsylvania at Shiloh, about the regiment and the monument.

The first Lancasterian of the 77th Pennsylvania to write home publicly about the battle was Pvt. F. J. Bender of Company C.  As one of 14 men from the town of Mount Joy to join Company C, Bender wrote regularly to the Church Advocate, a religious newspaper published in Lancaster by the Church of God.  His letter of April 10, 1862, describes the experience of battle from the vantage point of a rational, literate, articulate Civil War soldier.      

From the May 8, 1862, Church Advocate: (alternate link)

Lancaster at Shiloh: Capt. J. Bowman Bell, 15th US Infantry

Map of Battle of Shiloh, April 7, 1862
Note role of McCook's division in counterattack
(Map by Hal Jespersen, www.posix.com/CW)

This is the first in a series of three or four posts with dispatches from soldiers who experienced the Battle of Shiloh, April 6-7, 1862. 

The Battle of Shiloh lasted two days, April 6-7, 1862.  Its unprecedented 24,000 casualties horrified both the North and the South.  It started when recently united Confederate armies attacked and surprised Union troops under Gen. Ulysses S. Grant positioned with their backs to the Cumberland River.  Through Grant's efforts and the timely arrival of Gen. Don Carlos Buell's Army of the Ohio, the Union forces rallied and regained the lost ground in a spirited counterattack on April 7.

Although the 79th Pennsylvania missed the battle--much to the dismay of its soldiers--due to detached duty near Nashville, other units and individuals with Lancaster connections fought in their first full-scale battle at Shiloh.  Most of them were part of Gen. McCook's Division of Buell's Army that rescued Grant and launched a spirited counterattack on April 7.

Included among the Lancasterians in McCook's Division was Capt. J. Bowman Bell, of Company D, 15th U.S. Infantry.  Although Capt. Bell (see "Find a Grave" reference) was from Reading, I believe he lived in Lancaster at certain points of his life, and he felt enough of a connection to write a letter to the Lancaster Daily Evening Express describing the Battle of Shiloh. 

Cover Sheet of the Bell Polka, dedicated to Mrs. J. Bowman Bell
(Source)

 From the May 10, 1862, Daily Evening Express: (alternate link)